Why Teaching Science Might Be the Best Decision You Ever Make

Somewhere between a family farm in New Mexico and a policy office in Washington, D.C., I decided that the highest-leverage thing a scientifically trained adult can do isn't run a lab or run an agency. It's stand in front of a room of sixteen-year-olds and help even one of them realize they could do this too. If you've ever wondered whether teaching science is a big enough life for someone who could do something else with a science background, this page is my answer — and an invitation to consider it seriously for yourself.

A farm in New Mexico, and an early question

I grew up on a family farm in New Mexico, which is a strange enough place to trace a science career back to, except that it isn't: a farm is where you learn that living systems are stubborn, specific, and unforgiving of sloppy thinking, long before anyone hands you the word "biology" for it. That early, unglamorous exposure to how life actually works — not the textbook version, the version with weather and timing and consequences — is a real part of why I ended up in science, and later in science education, at all.

Research first: tuberculosis and a PhD

I earned my PhD studying tuberculosis immunology in Dr. Arturo Casadevall's laboratory, working on the antigens Mycobacterium tuberculosis uses to interact with the immune system. That research produced real, peer-reviewed publications, and it gave me something I still use every day in a classroom: direct, personal experience with how slow, uncertain, and occasionally thrilling actual scientific work is, as opposed to how it gets summarized in a textbook.

Choosing the classroom, and choosing to lead

After finishing the PhD, I chose to teach chemistry at The Beacon School in New York City — a deliberate choice, not a fallback. While I was there, I was also part of the school's leadership team, which meant the job was never just "teach your sections and go home"; it included helping shape what the school itself was trying to be. I used those years to keep building the education side of my training formally: I completed two master's degrees at Teachers College, Columbia University, while still teaching full-time — an EdM in Secondary Science Education, and an MA in International Education Development with an emphasis on school leadership.

That same period is also when I first got pulled into helping start schools rather than just teach in them. One example: I advised on science curriculum design for a school effort connected to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. It turns out the skills a good classroom teacher builds — knowing what a 15-year-old is actually ready to understand, and in what order — are exactly the skills a new school needs from someone at the table when it's being designed.

A front-row seat to national science policy

For a period, I also worked in Washington, D.C., including an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowship placed at the National Science Foundation, and service on the National Research Council's Board on Science Education — where the question on the table wasn't "what does the newest study show," it was "what should every kid in America actually be taught, and why." Some of that Washington work was international in scope, especially in my last year there, right before I went back to teaching. It's the piece of my background I'd most want a future teacher to notice — not because it was prestigious, but because of what it taught me: the people who get to argue for what science education should look like nationally almost all got their start somewhere ordinary, in a classroom, with a teacher who treated the subject as if it mattered. I wanted to go back to being that person, not just advise from a policy office about what that person should do.

Building programs at Mason

From there I joined George Mason University as an Assistant Professor of Biology, where the work that mattered most to me wasn't a journal article — it was serving as the founding coordinator of the Governor's School @ Innovation Park, a STEM-focused academic-year Governor's School program built through Mason and its regional school district partners, and founding RADSS, the Rural and Diverse Student Scholars program, an NSF-supported effort to recruit and retain academically talented rural and underrepresented students in Mason's College of Science. Both were the same project, really: helping a talented high schooler become a college-ready scientist, with real evidence of that transformation on paper, not just a feeling of readiness.

The deliberate return

I didn't end up at Battlefield High School because every other option ran out. Across a PhD, a school leadership role, two graduate degrees in education, a federal policy fellowship, and a university faculty position, the single highest-leverage thing I ever did for a student's future kept turning out to be the same thing: sitting with one kid, in one conversation, and helping them see a version of themselves as a scientist that they hadn't quite let themselves believe yet. You can do that from a lot of positions. You can do it most, and earliest — when it still has the most runway left to matter — from a high school classroom.

What a science teacher can actually do for a student

This is the part I want anyone considering this career to read closely, because "I like science and I like kids" undersells the job. Here is what a science teacher is positioned to do that almost no one else in a student's life can:

See potential before the student does. I write roughly 50 letters of recommendation a year. Each one means sitting down and describing, in specific detail, a version of a student's scientific promise that they usually haven't fully articulated to themselves yet. Naming someone's potential out loud, with evidence, is one of the most consequential things an adult can do for a teenager — and a teacher gets to do it as part of the job description.

Turn coursework into a real research trajectory. One of my current students, Yash Sabharwal, credits his research mentoring here at Battlefield as part of what carried him to Regeneron ISEF recognition (2023 and 2024), a National STEM Champion award from the U.S. Department of Education, and, in 2025, the Congressional Gold Medal — and he said it plainly: he believes I "played a pivotal role in guiding him through the research process." I'd describe my part more modestly than that — Yash did the work — but it's a real example of what's possible when a high school science class becomes a launching pad instead of just a set of standards to cover.

Build the on-ramp to college-level work. The Dual Enrollment Biology course I teach exists for exactly this reason: it gives a talented sophomore or junior a guaranteed, real college transcript line, months before they've applied anywhere, and it gives me a semester-long, unusually close look at how a student thinks under college-level demands.

Model what a scientist's life can actually look like. Most students have never met a working scientist in person, let alone one who has done bench research, helped start schools, written federal policy, and stood in front of a classroom. A science teacher with that kind of background isn't just teaching content — they're proof that the path from "curious kid on a farm" to a life shaping what science gets funded and taught nationally can run directly through a public high school classroom, because it ran through mine.

Explore further

AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowship

A year-long program placing PhD scientists inside federal agencies and Congress to bring scientific expertise directly into policymaking.

Dual enrollment (DE)

A high school course that simultaneously earns high school credit and real college credit through a partner institution.

Translational mentorship

Taking research-level thinking — forming a hypothesis, designing a test, tolerating a failed result — and teaching it directly to a student working on their own project, rather than only lecturing about how research works.

Sources: Scientia.global profile of the RADSS program and its founder; ResearchGate publication records for tuberculosis immunology research conducted in the Casadevall laboratory at Albert Einstein College of Medicine; InsideNoVa, "Meet Battlefield High School's World-Class STEM Student," Katherine Gotthardt, March 31, 2025 (source of the Yash Sabharwal quote and Congressional Gold Medal / Regeneron ISEF / National STEM Champion details); AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships program description (aaas.org); the Governor's School @ Innovation Park (governors.pwcs.edu). Career narrative and framing reflect the author's own account of his path. DRAFT — review before publishing to students.